Distillery Hours – Monday – Saturday • 9:30 A.M. – 3:30 P.M. EST, Sunday (March through December) • 11:30 A.M. – 3:30 P.M. EST. General admission is $7 for adults. Summer shut down will be from August 12 to September 9, 2013 (similar times in other years; check website for more details). Full tours will still be available, but bourbon will not be in production.

What makes Marker’s Mark different from other distilleries?

According to Guiness World Book of Records, Maker’s is the oldest operating bourbon distillery, operating since 1805.

They hand dip every bottle with their signature red wax.

There is no rye in the mashbill. Instead they use corn, red winter wheat, and malted barley. This is why their bourbon is sweeter than some others.

They are a “small batch bourbon,” which they define as “a bourbon that is produced/distilled in small quantities of approximately 1,000 gallons or less (20 barrels) from a mash bill of around 200 bushels of grain.”

Marker’s Mark is one of the few distilleries left that hand rotates the barrel positions in the rickhouse to produce the desired flavor.

A Brief History

The land on which Maker’s Mark resides has long been a distillery. T. William “Bill” Samuels Sr. purchased what was known as “Burks’ Distillery” in 1954. The distillery was in poor repair and, with his family, Bill revamped the whole place and created a distinctive new bourbon- Maker’s Mark. They priced their distinctive red wax dipped bottles (Bill’s wife Margie’s idea) at a higher price than other bourbons and marketed it with the slogan “It tastes expensive… and is.” Though the company was sold to several different companies through the years, the Samuels family continued to oversee it’s production. Today, Bill’s grandson Rob is CEO and president.

In early spring 2013, Maker’s Mark (in response to a huge new demand for bourbon) decided to reduce the strength of it’s whiskey from it’s traditional 90 proof to 84 proof. The idea was that they would be able to increase the available stock. There was a huge negative reaction from customers. Radio stations and newspapers across the Bluegrass featured some negative reviews of the new “watered down flavor” as well as the consumer reactions. Only 12 days later, the company rescinded it’s position and now bottles only at the original 90 proof strength.

The Tour

We really enjoyed our Marker’s Mark tour. The tour group met in an old farm house, decorated in 1950s style. We then walked the grounds. Each building is painted in the distinctive red and black color scheme. All the shutters have a bourbon bottle cut out as decoration. The only building that is not red and black is the Quart House, one of the oldest liquor stores in the United States and a National Historic Landmark.

When we visited, the distillery was in shut down and repairs were being done. Despite that, we were still able to see the giant tubs for cooking mash and their 5 story continuous column still. We toured a rickhouse; it was like all the other’s we had previously seen on the Trail, complete with Angel’s Share smell. Marker’s Mark is one of the few distilleries left that hand rotates the barrel positions in the rickhouse to produce the desired flavor.

After the bourbon is aged perfectly, it is emptied from the barrels and bottled in the distinctive square bottles. Each bottle is hand dipped in red wax. We were able to watch the process from start to finish. The people on the line were very efficient. I doubt I could dip as fast as them! (If you want to try your hand at dipping, you can buy and dip your own bottle in the gift shop.)

My favorite part of the tour was the Tasting Room. The tour guide said it was new; it is very cleanly designed. Each person to tour was given a taste of four bourbons – Maker’s White, Maker’s Fully Matured, Maker’s Over Matured, and Maker’s 46 (double oaked bourbon). It was nice to taste them each and compare them to each other. Honestly, of all the bourbons I tried on the tours, I liked Maker’s Mark the best. It is sweeter, less spicy and easy to drink. For those who are trying to acquire a taste for bourbon, this is the place to start. Overall, we really enjoyed this tour. The grounds are lovely, the tour was informative, and the bourbon was tasty. It is clear that the employees of Maker’s are passionate about their product and that they recognize that quality is more important than quantity.

Aging in its facilities is the second largest inventory of aging Kentucky whiskey in the world, with over 900,000 barrels. This accounts for nearly 17 percent of the world’s future supply of Bourbon.

Heaven Hill has filled over six million barrels of Kentucky Bourbon since it was founded after the repeal of Prohibition. Pretty incredible!

A Brief History

Founded by the five Shapira brothers in 1934, the Heaven Hill Distilleries is still run by descendants of the Shapiras, making it the only family owned and operated bourbon distillery on the Bourbon Trail. With a brief pause during WWII to manufacture alcohol for the war effort, the distillery has continued to operate and now is the seventh largest spirits supplier in the US and the second largest holder of aging bourbon in the world with 900,000 barrels in stock (this is according to their website.) Today, Heaven Hill Distilleries is the owner of such brands as Copa De Oro Coffee Liqueur, Dubonnet Aperitif, Coronet VSQ Brandy, DuBouchett Cordials and Liqueurs, and Burnett’s Vodka. For a full list, click this link.

The Tour

The Bourbon Heritage Center is the main visitors center for the distillery. This building was built to pay homage to the bourbon trade. Limestone is used for the brickwork, copper is used in the roofing, and oak as the hardwood flooring. It was named The International Whiskey Visitor Attraction of the Year 2009 Winner by Whisky Magazine. It is quite lovely indeed.

Our tour guide was a very nice lady who was knowledgeable about the bourbon. She took us to a rick house, gave us quite a few details about the distillation process, and gave an excellent tasting. I do have a couple of reservations about the tour. We didn’t see much- just the visitors center and the rick house. For being such a large operation, I would have liked to have seen more of the actual operations. We didn’t get to see any of the actual distillation process. Instead, they set up a model in the visitors center. If this is going to be your only visit to a distillery, this is not the place to go. It was a good tour but your won’t see much of the process. I suggest some place like Woodford Reserve, Maker’s Mark or Buffalo Trace (not on the Trail.) We did get an excellent tasting, though. The tour guide made the effort of talking about the flavor profiles that we should taste in each sample. We tried each of the bourbons straight and with a bit of water. She also told us how the master distiller felt each bourbon was best savored. If he doesn’t know how it is best tasted, I doubt I will. And I appreciated the expert tip. Evan Williams was about to release a new seasonal bourbon based liquor- Apple Orchard. I asked the tour guide if it was good and she said “Do you want to taste it?” Of course, I said yes and we got an extra sample! I love that she was passionate enough about the product to try to convert me. And she did. We bought a bottle as soon as it was on the market. Overall this was a nice tour, but I wouldn’t want this to be someone’s only distillery visit.

Distilery Tours- Monday – Saturday: 10am – 4pm; Sunday: 12pm – 4pm. All tours start on the hour and the facility is closed on major national holidays. Tickets for admission are $7. (Photo below from here.)

What makes Town Branch Distillery different from other distilleries?

It is owned by the Lexington Brewing and Distilling Company, which makes both beer and bourbon.

It is the youngest distillery on the Bourbon Trail, opening in 2012. Prior to that, they produced Kentucky Ale.

It is the first distillery opened in Lexington in over 100 years.

It gets it’s name and water from Town Branch, a limestone-bottomed creek running through Lexington.

A Brief History

This distillery was founded by Pearse Lyons, the president and founder of animal nutrition company Alltech, in 2012. Prior to that, the facility was (as still is) a beer distillery. Mr. Lyons received a doctorate in brewing from the British School of Malting and Brewing in Birmingham, UK. He is also very influential in agribusiness- founding an animal feed company Alltech, sponsoring a major equestrian event (the 2010 Alltech FEI World Equestrian Games held in Lexington) with that company, and open one of the largest commercial algae production sites in the world. Though the distillery may be young, it recieves a significant amount of attention because of it’s connection to this pinnacle of business/agriculture.

The Tour

Town Branch was the last stop and fourth distillery of our first day. We were pretty tired and I was afraid that the tour itself would be boring as the facility looked so small. Boy, was I wrong! The tour met in a nice brick building where the gift shop is housed. We were shown a brief video about Lexington Brewing and Distilling Company, it’s connection to Alltech and Pearse Lyons, and it’s brief history. Our tour guide led us and another couple through the small brewery area. They brew five beers that are very popular in the area, especially the Kentucky Bourbon Barrel Ale. This beer is their basic Ale, stored for six weeks in bourbon barrels, and then bottled. The beer has a great bourbon flavor without being overwhelming. It’s a nice specialty item and is a great gift idea if you want to show someone the awesomeness of this Kentucky product married to a famous Kentucky tradition.

After the brewery tour, we walked to the distillery area. A lot of their production area was very small. They had two copper stills and two cyprus mashtubs in a gorgeously constructed stone room. It would be the perfect place to host a small, upscale party. When the bourbon production is completed, they barrel the bourbon and store it in rickhouses and bottled off site.

Production of the bourbon is small and is not the main source of revenue for Lexington Brewing and Distilling Company. Nevertheless, it is a nice stop on the trail. The tour guide was very informative, was interested in all of their products and their practice use in your daily life. She talked about how she used them at her dinner parties and, since she used to work for Southern Living in food photography, I bet they are awesome affairs. I recommend Town Branch being the last stop on a day of touring the Bourbon Trail, that way you can enjoy one of the great restaurants in the Lex food scene. There are some pretty tasty places on both ends of the financial spectrum. Overall, Town Branch was classy and inviting, a nice addition to the Trail.

They have a large museum of special limited-edition decanters, first introduced in the 1950s. It’s a pretty neat look back at advertising in the past.

They sell the most bourbon of all the distilleries on the Trail.

A Brief History

The legendary forefather’s of bourbon, the Beams, came to the US from Germany, bringing with them their whisky brewing know-how. Jacob Beam was the first member of the Beam family to sell bourbon. In the early 1800s, it was later more widely distributed David Beam. With each subsequent generation (and there have been 7), Jim Beam bourbon distillery has expanded. Today it is so large it has it’s own New York Stock exchange tag: BEAM. They have expanded from bourbon to BBQ sauce, snacks, hams, jellies and glazes, clothing, and even charcoal.

The Tour

This was my least favorite tour of the Bourbon Trail. This analogy explains it all- Woodford Reserve is to Jim Beam, as a locally owned general store is to a Kroger Marketplace. So it is huge!

As we drove toward the grounds, we passed a nice white barn painted with the Jim Beam label. Kind of cool. The road up the hill was well paved with newly planted landscaping; it wound through several rickhouses and past a country church. The road ends on top of the hill among a small city of buildings. The main building you see is their “American Stillhouse.” It is where you purchase your tour tickets and then wander around their extensive collection of gift shop merchandise.

Our tour guide was a 20 something year old guy who was clearly not passionate about bourbon. Not that he wasn’t informative. He was. His tour was so obviously a memorized spiel, like if you swapped things up he would lose his place and the tour might fall apart. Honestly, I am not sure why I expected something else. The distillery itself turns out hundreds of thousands of cases of bourbons and whiskies each week. Unreal! If the production is so commercialized, I should have expected that the tour would be as well.

OK, so enough of my gripes. It was really cool to see the huge machines and vats they use to distill their bourbon. Their column still is FIVE stories tall!!! All that bourbon needs to be bottled and quickly. They have a several lines for the bottling, run 8 hours a day. The line was saw has bottled as many as 1800 cases a day! Blows my mind! I have always had a fascination with mechanized things so I really enjoyed seeing this part of the tour.

Part of the bottling line.

Part of the bottling line.

Look how fast that gushes out! 24 hours a day!

At the end of the tour, we walked to a tasting area where we were given swipe cards with “tokens” on them for two free tastes per person. You swipe the card, push the button for your desired bourbon, and a pre-set amount of that bourbon is dispensed into your cup. There were about 12 total choices. We enjoyed the multiple choices but it was less personal than the previous tastings. There was no human interaction. No “I really like this one because…” from a knowledgeable, bourbon-loving employee. (Photo below from here.)

Overall, I liked seeing this end of the two extremes of bourbon production. If this is your only bourbon distillery to visit, I am concerned that you won’t get a true good view of what bourbon and the Bourbon Trail is.

Distillery Tours- Monday – Saturday • 9:00 am – 5:00 pm, on the hour
Sunday (March through December) • 12:00 pm – 4:30 pm. Closed on major national holidays. General admission tickets are $7. Those with military ID get free admission and a 10% off discount in the gift shop.

What makes Woodford Reserve Distillery different from other distilleries?

They use limestone rickhouses- others use wooden or clay tiled.

It’s the official bourbon of the Kentucky Derby.

They use a triple distillation process to handcraft their bourbon.

They use temperature controlled warehouses instead of rotation of the barrels.

The mash bill is 72% corn, 10% malted barley, 18% rye.

A Brief History

According to the Bourbon Trail website, Woodford Reserve is the oldest and smallest distillery in Kentucky. It traces its origins to 1797 when Elijah Pepper began distilling in Woodford County. The company was sold to Leopold Labrot and James Graham in 1878, who owned and operated it (except during Prohibition) until 1941 when it was sold to the Brown-Forman Corporation. The distillery continued to operate until 1968, when it was shut down and sold again. Brown-Forman later repurchased and then refurbished the facilities in 1993. The brand was then placed back on the market in 1996. It has been a popular seller since then.

The Tour

The grounds of Woodford Reserve are gorgeous! Nestled in the horse farms and stone fences, this distillery is one of the most beautiful on the Bourbon Trail. It reminded me of other classic Southern architecture like that found at Mt. Vernon. Our tour guide was an elderly gentleman who clearly had a passion for the bourbon and for the distillery. He gave an informative tour and didn’t rush through things.

Cyprus Vat

Copper Still

Barrel Cooperage

The distillery itself is not too large, though it is one of the most visited distilleries on the tour. Perhaps this is because it is a National Historic Landmark. Like other distilleries, Woodford uses grains and limestone filtered water. They are one of the few distilleries to still use a copper pot still and the only to use the triple distillation process. Woodford Reserve is a small operation so they focus more of flavor than the quantity that they produce.

Overall, we really enjoyed this tour. It was informative and fun. The grounds were gorgeous as was the area surrounding. The horses and the stone fences really set off the atmosphere. At the end of the tour, you get a sample of Woodford Reserve and a bourbon ball. If you can only visit one distillery, this is the one to visit.

Distillery Tours- Monday – Saturday • 9:00 am – 3:00 pm, on the hour and
Sunday (March through November) • 12:00 pm – 3:00 pm, on the hour. General admission tickets are $5. There is no charge for military personnel with ID.

What makes Wild Turkey Distillery different from other distilleries?

Their master distiller has been there since 1954. That’s 59 years!

They use one of the heaviest chars on their bourbon barrels – #4.

The bourbon is barreled at a lower proof so that they add less water at time of bottling. They say this helps retain the flavor.

A Brief History

In 1869, the Ripy brothers opened their distillery on the banks of the Kentucky River. They ran the distillery until they were bought out by the Gould Brothers in 1952 (with a brief pause for Prohibition). There were a couple of other buyouts. In 2009, the Campari Group bought the distillery. Today they make Wild Turkey in addition to bottling other brands such as SKYY vodka and Cabo Wabo tequila.

The Tour

From the beginning of the tour, it is obvious that Wild Turkey is a larger operation than Four Roses. We took a small bus from the gift shop to the newly opened distillery. There we watched a video about the distillery, it’s history, and the process. Then we walked through the cookers and fermentation room. They were in full swing there. Next we went to the warehouses, where we learned about their barreling and storage processes. We also learned about a warehouse fire in 2000, where thousands of gallons of bourbon spilled into the Kentucky River, killing lots of fish and resulting shut down of water to Lawrenceburg. We enjoyed the tour but I felt like there was some missing intimacy. Maybe it was lost in the industrialized process.

At the end of the tour, you get to try three bourbons of your choice (you get to select from 6 varieties). Honestly, I am not a huge fan of Wild Turkey bourbon. It is too spicy for me. I prefer smoother, sweeter bourbons. But my husband drinks it, sometimes straight out of the bottle. He says it makes him want to fight… no fights have actually occurred 🙂

They use four yeasts instead of one; each yeast contributes something different to the flavor profile. No other distillery has this many!

The grounds feature a unique Spanish Mission–style architecture.

A Brief History

Established by Paul Jones Jr, Four Roses Distillery was started in 1922 and was one of only six distilleries granted permission to operate through prohibition to produce bourbon for “medicinal purposes.” The name of the distillery came from his marriage proposal. Apparently he proposed via letter to a lady; she said that the answer would be “yes” if she worse a corsage of roses to an upcoming ball. The night of the soiree, she wore four red roses. He named the distillery “Four Roses” as a symbol of his love for her. Four Roses continued production and shipment to the US until the mid 70s when the company was bought out by Segrams, who shut down sale to the US and began concentrating on the European and Asian markets. In 2002, the brand was bought by Kirin Brewery Company LTD and Four Roses brought it’s bourbon back to Kentucky and the United States. (Photo below from http://adventuresofjessieanderic.wordpress.com/.)

According to their website, “Four Roses is the only Bourbon distillery that combines five proprietary yeast strains with two separate mashbills to produce 10 distinct and handcrafted bourbon recipes, each with its own unique character, spiciness and rich fruity flavors.” Other distilleries use only one strain of yeast. Four Roses stores their bourbon barrels on single story rick houses, also a unique feature of Four Roses Distilleries. Learn more about each yeast strain here.

The Tour

The grounds of Four Roses are beautiful. The Spanish Mission style buildings are totally different than other buildings in the area. Surrounded by farms, the distillery is small and comfortable. The tour guide was knowledgeable and able to answer all the questions we had about the bourbon, the distillery, and the area. During the summer, the water level of the Salt River (where they get their water) drops. So each year they go into shut down mode until the fall. Of course, they were in shut down when we visited. We didn’t get to see the distillation process in action, though we did see the equipment and get an explanation of each step. The tour would have been better if we had seen the process but the tour was still very enjoyable.

At the end of the tour, you get to sample the three different bourbons pictured above. My favorite was the small batch bourbon. Be sure to eat before you go. We were running late the morning of the tour so I had no coffee or breakfast- I am only half human before these things. An empty stomach plus nearly a shot of bourbon equals a tipsy girl at 10 am. Not a good plan!

1. a straight whiskey distilled from a mash having at least 51 percent corn in addition to malt and rye. Origin- mid 19th century: named after Bourbon County, Kentucky, where it was first made.

America’s only native spirit, bourbon is defined by the The Federal Standards of Identity for Distilled Spirits as a spirit that is:
1) Produced in the United States
2) Made from a grain mixture that is at least 51% corn
3) Aged in new, charred-oak barrels
4) Distilled to no more than 160 (U.S.) proof (80% alcohol by volume)
4) Entered into the barrel for aging at no more than 125 proof (62.5% alcohol by volume)
5) Bottled (like other whiskeys) at 80 proof or more (40% alcohol by volume) and
6) Does not have added coloring, flavoring, or other spirits may (but is not required to) be called straight bourbon.

More than 95% of bourbon is made in Kentucky! Distilleries are perfectly situated close to grain farmers and good water that flows up through limestone rock, which filters out iron and adds calcium. Kentucky also has extreme weather conditions- hot, humid summers and winters where the thermometer dips below zero. (This change in temperature encourages the bourbon to flow in and out of the charred oak casks- more on this later.) The Ohio River and the L&N Railroad runs through Central Kentucky, giving the original distilleries a way to transport their goods to market.

A Brief History of Bourbon

Irish and Scotch men and women emigrated to the US in hopes of a better life. They brought with them the knowledge of whiskey distillation, cooperage (barrel making), and farming. Because our forefathers were resourceful, they would reuse barrels, scrapping them out and charring their insides to help sterilize and remove any residual taste. They would then fill them up with whiskey and ship them on to the next destination. During the months long shipments, the charred barrels would give the whiskey a lovely amber color and oak y taste. The name bourbon came from the name of the port from which the whiskey originated – the county in Kentucky named for the French Bourbons. People began asking for Bourbon Whiskey and a legend was born.

How Bourbon Is Made

The grains used to make bourbon are carefully selected from the best available product (all are GMO free as they can import bourbon to European countries which ban GMOs). These grains are then ground; each distillery has it’s own technique. The recipe of the grains together is called “a mash bill.”

Each distillery has it’s own mash bill including 1) Corn- the source of the highest alcohol yield and signature flavor; 2) Barley- full on enzymes that convert startches to sugar, later eaten by the yeast; 3) Rye- adds spiciness similar to that found in rye bread; and 4) Wheat- added for sweetness and not overpowering like rye can be.

Barley

Corn

Rye or Wheat

The grain is placed into a mash cooker made of red cyprus (now illegal to harvest) or stainless steel. First the corn goes in because it can tolerate the high temp of 220 degrees Fahrenheit. The rye, barley, and/or wheat get added later because they are damaged unless some cooling of the mash is allowed. Yeast is then added to the mash. Each distillery has it’s own secret yeast that they cherish like gold. Some distilleries even keep it in several separate locations in case one gets damaged. They say that some of the flavor profile is directly related to the yeast. Of the seven distilleries we visited, only Four Roses uses more than one yeast; they use four. Once the mash has been cooled to 75-85F, the yeast is added to the tank. The yeast breaks down the sugar in the mash, converting it to alcohol and carbon dioxide. There is a significant difference hourly as the mash is invaded by multiplying yeast. (This is one of my favorite things to see on the tours!) The mash and yeast mixture at the end of this step is called distiller’s beer.

The beer is the pumped through a column still, a tall column with perforated plates at various levels. Steam is pumped up through the column, allowing the water to turn to vaporize off and the alcohol to separate from the mash. The grains flow gradually to the bottom of the still. The alcohol is collected at the top of the still and condensed into “low wine.” The low wine is pumped through a doubler so that even more water and impurities are removed; this creates “high wine.” This new bourbon whiskey is also called “white dog” and is drinkable, though it will not have the oaky flavor of bourbon. It is more like moonshine. New, charred white oak barrels are filled with this white dog at no more than 125 proof (if it is higher, a bit of demineralized water is added).

The barrel is put into a large barn like structure known as a rick house. Rickhouses are five to nine stories high and mostly built north to south to maximize their exposure to the sun Remember that the temperature fluctuation causes the bourbon to move in and out of the charred wood? Barrels at the top of the warehouse are exposed to the highest heat while those at the bottom the lowest. The higher the barrel, the faster the bourbon evaporates (the evaporate is called “the angel’s share.” Some distilleries use man power to move barrels from one place to another in the rickhouse. This movement is supposed to even aging, thus making the flavor more uniform. Four Roses uses single floor warehouses so the flavor of each barrel will always be the same (save the slight variances caused by difference in weather from year to year). Instead of rotating barrels, which is quite labor intensive, some distilleries use a cross section of barrels from a warehouse and expertly blend them together to form a uniform taste. Typically the larger the operation, the less rotation. The longer the barrel ages, the more the “angel’s share” evaporates, leaving behind a strong bourbon.

When the master distiller decides the time is right, the bourbon is removed from the rickhouse and bottled. Some is bottled as “single barrel” meaning that all the bourbon in your bottle is from the same barrel. Single barrel bottles often have the warehouse number, rick number, and barrel number on the label. That way if you like what you have, you can buy another bottle that is from a similar place in the warehouse. Single barrel bourbon is also the more expensive. “Small batch” bourbon is a blended bourbon from a small number of barrels (no hard and fast number that I could find) that aims for a complex balance of flavor. Some “small batch bourbons” are also very expensive. Cheaper bourbons are large batch mixes, though they too aim for an even flavor (think Jim Beam’s year old bourbon).